Bedroom talk in court

Two furniture manufacturers faced off over the design of a bedroom suite in the high court in Pretoria.

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Pretoria - It was all bedroom talk in the high court in Pretoria on Wednesday when two furniture manufacturers faced off over the design of a bedroom suite.

At the centre of the bedroom tale was Jack Maserow Manufacturers CC, a Midrand company, complaining that rival, Axzs Industries, trading as Don Elly Enterprises, marketed and sold its Seville bedroom range, which was a copy or, at least, very similar, to its expensive Aztec and cheaper Bolero ranges.

The applicant said it had registered its bedroom design in 2011 and the Seville suite is very similar to this design. It asked the court ito interdict the respondent from infringing on its design and vowed to claim the damages it had suffered as a result of this infringement.

Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann was told that Jack Maserow had produced 113 000 polyurethane bedroom suites worth R500 million since 2002. Its products were sold in prominent furniture retail chains.

It developed the Aztec suite, with the cheaper Bolero version, in 2011. This was a radical departure from the so-called classical design bedroom suites then common in South-Africa. The unique features lay in the design of the headboard, night stands and dressing table, it said.

The Seville was a copy of the Aztec, but at a lower price, the court was told. The applicant said its sales had dropped since the Seville entered the market. The Seville’s design was done by a former employee of the applicant, who was asked by the respondent to design a new bedroom suite which closely resembled that of Jack Maserow.

But the respondent said the applicant did not have the right to register the design, as it “lacked originality” and the Seville looked different from the Aztec, it was argued.

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cale drawings of both designs were super-imposed as evidence.

But Judge Bertelsmann said apart from a few measurement differences, the two designs did look strikingly alike to him. There could be no doubt that prospective buyers could easily confuse the Seville with the Aztec.

He granted the interdict preventing the selling of the Seville bedroom suite, and ordered the respondent deliver all the offending suites to the applicant “for destruction”.

zelda.venter@inl.co.za

Pretoria News